It's too laaaate to apologizeeeeee

Dear everyone who is normal,

This week I ate pig's foot. It was repulsive. Mainly just fat and skin, which you are supposed to chew off the bone. I couldn't finish eating it. I hope you never have to start eating it.  

Also, I hope today's email will help you. Sometimes I feel weak and come to email looking for comfort and peace, and sometimes I find it by seeing that other people are struggling, too, often with the same things that I am. (I firmly believe all our struggles, at the bottom, are the same. They require the same response.) And when I see other people struggling, there is this compassion and perspective that comes, that heals me and helps me find strength to help other people. 

I got a new companion, Sister Sun. (Pronounced kind of like "soon" but different). She is from the most southern point of Taiwan, a place called PingDong. Her mother is an immigrant from Indonesia, so she speaks not only fluent Mandarin and Taiwanese, but Indonesian and also is not to bad at English. She grew up Muslim and converted to the church about three years ago. Her parents do not understand why she is going on a mission at all; they have given her permission to go but she doesn't have their emotional support. I can't imagine how lonely and hard that would be, but she is so humble and faithful. On our first day together, trying to express compassion for her situation, I asked if not having their support was hard. She said, "I do have their support. They let me come." And also that, "Being on a mission isn't lonely; you have a companion." Her selflessness blows my mind. I respect the HECK out of her! 

 

In fact, being assigned as her trainer has been really humbling. Our first morning together during studies, I kind of had an emotionally-heavy identity crisis while I was realizing how self-centered and Western I am. I know the scriptures way better than she does, have had so many beautiful experiences of answered prayers and closeness to God, have been active in the church my whole life and generally consider myself to be a good-hearted person; but there is something about her simple faith that just blows all of these supposed "evidences of spirituality" to pieces. I started wondering if I really had anything to teach her at all. Another difficult aspect is that because she is Taiwanese there are immediately a million things she can do better than I can. She remembers people's names so easily, (to me all the syllables so easily blur together, and sound the same), and can pick up on all the details of what people are saying when I only get the gist. She understands these people's culture in a way I never will be able to. 

One of the main reasons it has been hard, too, is just the pressure of training in general. At the training we received to be trainers, they drilled into our heads that the way we are with our trainees will set the pattern for the rest of their mission, that we need to be a really good example of obedience and faith, etc. etc. I have developed I think a fairly healthy attitude toward mission expectations. I see why they are necessary and good; they motivate us to overcome our lazy parts and really do produce a lot of good results. But there are also times when they are kind of impossible, in which case I try to just drop them from my mind. So at the time I was like, "Yeah, no problem. I know how to do missionary work, I can show her." 

But.. sometimes It is really, really hard to have that perspective. Once we actually came back to YongHe and got to work, I started becoming conscious of so many ideals and expectations I simply don't live up to. Not really because I don't want to, but because it simply seems beyond what my ability and time allows for. Have you ever felt that way? 

For example, we obviously all know that being a missionary work should be a work of sincerity and love.  Nearly every second of our days are packed with activities focused on these people, even the times when we are supposed to have personal time. Nightly planning is only supposed to go until 9:30, but I am on the phone until 10 or 10:15 each night, calling people to confirm for tomorrow's lessons, see how they are doing, follow up on stuff, etc. Even then, I always feel like I am only getting half of what I need to do. So going to bed at 10:30--another thing we are encouraged to do-- is an extremely difficult task, (that I will be honest, hasn't really happened until I became a trainer).  Most of the time, I am really happy with this life. It really is incredibly rewarding and you really do get to love people so much that it is a pleasure to sacrifice for them. But there are definitely times when you just get tired, and you start to look at all you're doing from the perspective of your own needs, and it gets so, so hard to keep going with a positive attitude. And then when the expectations keep piling up--for instance, you go to a meeting and they tell you that if you have enough faith you should be getting a baptism every month--it gets even harder. I know I am not perfect and there is so much of my heart I still have left to give; but gosh, I am trying so hard, too!

So what is to be done? I was feeling really overwhelmed on Thursday night, my first night as a trainer. I was on the phone with Elder Xu, my zone leader who is also a pretty good friend. He is kind of notorious in the mission because he is so hilarious and not really your typical, picture-perfect missionary. We were talking for a bit about something and then I told him, "Well, I probably better start getting ready for bed, I should probably set a good example for my companion." I think he could sense the tenseness in my voice, because he said, "Sister Brown. JUST BE YOURSELF." Then he reminded me of what he and Elder Baker, another good friend who just left home for America, focused on in the past two months in our zone meetings. February the theme was, "Be Happy" and in March the theme was "Friendship."  These meetings were definitely a bit unconventional. The February meeting was the one where they took about an hour to give me a surprise birthday party, and in the March meeting I made brownies for everyone (thanks for the brownie mixes, Mom and Mary!) and we took time in the middle of the meeting to have that little party. The two of them are always laughing, and being around them always reminds me, refreshingly, that it is okay and good to be a normal person. 

And gosh, I know that in my heart, too. I think we all do! It gets really hard sometimes. We all have those moments of feeling overwhelmed with all we are supposed to be doing, and all we could be doing better. But we also know the joy of just letting go. Of saying, "God, I worked pretty hard today. I know that's enough for you." And the pleasure of just enjoying the moment. For me, that means just loving my investigators as people! Loving all their quirks and funny stories. Loving my companions! Yesterday Sister Sun and I bonded over having secret ambitions to be college professors and for some reason also bonded over the only "One Republic" song that we know. We both started singing, "It's too late to apologizeeee... it's too laaaaaaate!" as we were biking off to an appointment. I also found out that she, like Chris, is a "Pigetarian". She hates pork! I told her about Chris, and the time his insistence on not eating pig meat was so strong that at age 10 he was willing to call Pizza Hut and ask if their pepperoni had pig meat in it before he would consume the pizza on the table. She thought that was adorable.

Like really, life is just good. I also included a picture of Sister Sutton and me at our training meeting, (she is training, too, this transfer), because I love Sister Sutton and she makes me so happy. Even if all the things I talked about in this email worried you, don't worry about me. I every once in a while, like we all do, have those hard times when things just seem overwhelming. But I have really experienced the beauty of the atonement. The beauty of being able to look at my imperfect efforts, my imperfect companion's efforts, my imperfect situation, and just be okay. All the embarrassing, awkward, painful, terrible things that might happen to us throughout the day, through the atonement of Christ, can be made into something beautiful. Something we can learn from. Something that can allow us to have more compassion for others. Something that can make someone laugh, or relate to us better, or to see as more human. 

I do want to say; I am not totally critical of mission ideals because they have a place in helping us to understand the atonement. It is in the gaps between where we are and where we want to be that we experience the beauty of the atonement, of all the things I just described. That means we need the ideals, the "law", I guess you could say, to create the gap. I do wish sometimes there were public mention of the other reality of things--that none of us is going to live up to the ideal, and that that is the point. But whatever. It's okay. 

Oh my gosh, I am so sorry this is so long. Probably none of you ever have time to read these emails. I am sorry! But I hope you all can find things to be happy about and go easier on yourselves this week. I love you all!

Sister Brown